David Murrow has written and
produced award-winning TV documentaries, commercials, and specials for
Discovery Channel, NBC, ABC, and Dr. Phil. But lately he has turned his
talents to writing about what he believes is the largest unreached people
group: Men. ďTodayís church does not mesmerize men,Ē believes Murrow,
ďit repels them. Whatís worse, nobody seems to care.Ē With 61% of
churchgoers women, Murrow believes there is a gender gap that cannot be
ignored. He talked with Servant about
his slightly controversial book Why Men
Hate Going To Church.

Phil: David, I've done my homework.
Youíre married and you live
in Alaska?

Right?

Yes. We have three kids, 18, 16, and
11. Weíve lived in Alaska for twenty-one years.

What do you do there?

Iím an independent television
producer, director, writer. There are always plenty of people who need
this type of work done. That pays the bills and increasingly Iím
starting to earn a bit of income from writing and speaking as well.
Especially for menís events. Itís been exciting. I enjoy that a lot.
In high school I always enjoyed being on stage, performingóIím
comfortable in front of a crowd.

Letís talk about the book. When
did it smack you that this book needed to be written?

Well, I think the first inkling that
something was wrong hit me during a worship service. My background is in
anthropology and in anthropology they teach you to do something called an
ethnographic survey. I was sitting in church bored with the sermon so I
started to do a survey of the situation. I looked at who was there and
discovered that over 60 percent of the adults in the room were women. Then
I looked at the bulletin to see who was in charge and saw that most of the
ministry leaders were women, most of the church staff were women. I looked
at the symbols in the room and most of them were feminine. There was a
lace doily on the communion table, fresh flowers, soft cushiony pews,
lavender walls. And of course the walls were covered with hand-crafted,
country-looking quilted banners that say ďHe is RisenĒ and
ďHallelujah.Ē So I began to realize through my survey that the target
audience of this institution was a 40 to 50-year-old woman. Everything in
this institution we called church was targeted at that demographic. Oh,
and I looked at the volunteer opportunities in the bulletin and there were
a lot of things to do with children, teaching, music, family-oriented
pot-luck dinners where you could cook, go down to the soup kitchen and
cookóall the skill sets that were needed to be a good churchgoer were
the roles that have been traditionally held by women. So I began to put it
together. Any good anthropologist could walk into a situation and tell who
is the particular driver in a particular society. And in the case of the
church society, even though it was led by males, the primary drivers were
the women.

Is this a new phenomenon?

Actually, no. The gender gap goes back
hundreds of years. It has grown larger at certain times, smaller at
others. I think it really reached its peak in the Victorian era. There was
a widespread perception in the 1800s that church was something for women.
Charles Spurgeon was quoted as saying, ďThereís gotten abroad a
wide-spread notion that to follow Christ is to sink oneís manliness and
turn milksop.Ē And the reaction to thatóin 1911 there was a sort of
proto-typical movement first called the Men in Religion Forward Movement
and this was an attempt to re-balance the church. During that era you had
an amazing flourishing of Christian organizations that were targeting men
and boys. You had the Young Menís Christian Association, the Boy Scouts,
the Men in Religion Forward Movement. The Salvation Army was formed in the
late 1800s. So there was a flourishing of masculine spirituality, which
was an attempt to re-balance the church which had become completely
feminized toward the end of the Victorian era. The church was really the
province of women and feminists and even gay men. So you had this
counter-revolution in the early 1900s and then the church kind of balanced
throughout the 50s and 60s so you see the rise of things like Promise
Keepers, which is an attempt to bring it back into balance. The natural
tendency in the church is to move toward feminization and then you need a
revolution. And men come back because theyíre interested in God.
Theyíre just not interested in being wimps.

Iím one of the guys who sits in
church every Sunday, youíre making me feel a little effeminate.

That doesnít make you effeminate;
that makes you used to it. But you know what, church does attract a lot of
guys like us who are verbal, weíre probably a little more on the
sensitive side, we appreciate music and expression and thatís not a bad
thing. My heart aches for those guys who are more athletic.

Hey, Iím athletic.

Theyíre adventurers, doers. Jesus
died for them as well and we need to create an environment where those
guys can connect with him, because those guys are real power houses.

Our
family was down in the Dominican Republic, one of the groups we work with
is Compassion, and we were in a church on a Sunday morning of about 150
people. I counted 7 men. One of them was the pastor. So this is not unique
to North America.

In many countries itís worse. I
think the American church does a better job than most of attracting men. I
received an email the other day from a pastor in Thailand who was asking
if he could get the book translated into Thai because the average church
that he works in, he does some circuit riding, the average church is 70
percent women. And his particular congregation is 90 percent women. So
itís really a world-wide phenomenon.

In your book you quote an
American man as saying that he went to Islam because it is a manís
religion.

I think thatís one of the reasons
why Islam is so popular in the African-American community. Thereís been
such a breakdown of male role models and healthy masculinity in the
African-American community because of incarceration and various other
cultural factors that young black men are so drawn to masculinity. If you
look at hip-hop culture itís all about muscles and jeans and guns and
women are sex-objects and thereís a reason for that. Itís because
these young men are walking around with huge gaping father wounds. And
they are drawn to anything thatís masculine. The black church could not
be more feminine. Itís all about this ecstatic experience with Jesus,
long two and three-hour verbal sermons. Men are not drawn to those sorts
of things. They want challenge and adventure no matter what their race.
The black church is going to have to wake up and realize theyíre losing
all their men because they insist on worshipping God in this very feminine
way.

But isnít it the same with other
faiths?

To a certain degree it is. I donít
think thereís any denomination out there that has really gotten it
figured out. Every branch of Christianity has its weakness. Catholicism,
for example. You walk into a Catholic parish and the first thing you see
is two statues. You see a statue of a woman whoís looking pretty healthy
and happy and right next to her is a statue of a man whoís been beaten
to a pulp. What message does that send to men? And Catholics are legendary
for their passivity in the pews. Men want to be active. They want to be
participants. And then you go to the Baptists. The Baptists have a very
activist doctrine, but thereís an emphasis on a personal relationship
with Jesus and being saved and a lot of those concepts donít resonate
with men. And then you go to a Pentecostal church and thereís all that
ecstatic expression. You can go right down the line and it seems as if the
evil one has planted some purely feminine seeds in every denomination and
theyíre causing men to become disillusioned and drop out.

So is this the menís fault?

Yes, absolutely. Every man is
responsible for his walk with God so in some cases it is menís fault.
This book is not to lay blame. Itís to help readers understand the
tremendous hurdles we have unwittingly placed in front of men as they try
to pursue God. If it was totally menís fault, then men would be less
religious in every religion. They would not be seeking God the way they
are in the Middle East or in Asia. Men are just as religious as women. But
thereís something about Christianity that is disinteresting the men. In
the New Testament there was no shortage of enthusiastic men, so in the
last 2000 years something has happened. Is it the menís fault? Yes, but
not entirely. There are institutional barriers that we have
unintentionally erected that hinder their participation.

Is it the pastorís fault?

Pastors have grown up in a church
system that has taught them the wrong way to minister to men. It has
taught them that men are developed from the pulpit, which they are not.
Men are developed through small groups when they are led by a man they
trust. If you talk to the great men of God they will tell you without
exception about a man who invested in them or in a small group of men and
that was the catalyst for their growth. You ask a man what was the
greatest sermon he ever heard; he doesnít remember. If you ask him who
was the greatest man who ever led you to Christ and heíll be able to
tell you two or three names instantly. So pastors are perpetuating the
only system they know. But Jesusí system was based on investing on a
small group of men. And when pastors begin to invest in their men through
small groups you see tremendous growth throughout the church. You see
numerical growth, financial growth, spiritual growth. It is amazing what
happens when you invest in men. That is the formula Jesus left us with and
it still works today.

Feminists have told us that
Christianity is male-dominated and patriarchal. Are you advocating an even
more male-dominated church?

First of all, Christianity is not
male-dominated. The ranks of senior leadership are dominated by males, but
these generals preside over an army that is almost completely female. So
there are some churches that are patriarchal, they tend to be small or
rural. But the fastest growing churches are not male-dominated. Barnaís
study showed that women are 56 percent more likely than men to hold the
leadership position in a church other than the role of senior pastor. Even
churches that are led by males tend to speak with a feminine accent. When
you read press releases from churches they talk like women, they use that
breezy language: We express regretÖwe seek peace and
reconciliationÖrelationships. It sounds like something out of a Meg Ryan
movie. Even though men are leading the church they donít act like normal
men. The men who lead the church are more verbal, more sensitive, more
relational. They have to be because the job requires it. If youíre not
relational you canít do hospital visitation. If youíre not verbal you
canít preach sermons. So the pastorate tends to attract men who are
gifted in these feminine arts. Thatís not a cut on pastors; God bless
them, we need them. But itís not like our churches are being led by a
bunch of jocks. Thatís just simply not the case.

You say youíre not calling men
back to church, youíre calling the church back to men.

Thereís all kinds of people calling
men. Promise Keepers, pastors, youth ministers are all calling men back to
church. Let me give you an example of how bad it is out in the churches.
Iíve talked to menís ministry leaders around the country and they
estimate that only about 10 percent of churches in the U.S. and Canada
even have a menís ministry of any kind. You compare that to the 80 or 90
percent that have ministries for women and children and right away you
have a picture of the state of men in our church today. Even the men who
go are so unenthusiastic about it that they canít create a ministry. Now
the problem with menís ministry is that itís often just womenís
ministry for men. We expect them to act like women, to hug each other and
hold hands and sing Kumba Ya, have long verbal studies. Thatís not how
men bond. Men bond over shared experience. The big point I want to make
about menís ministry is this: we have tried to contain the wild spirit
of men in menís ministry. Weíve said, ok men, if you want to go out
and be masculine and wild of heart you can do that at the breakfast
weíre having for you on Saturday morning at 8:00. Thatís where men can
be men. But donít you bring that masculine spirit in here on Sunday
morning and mess things up. Because men get a little rowdy, men tell it
like it is, they sometimes hurt peopleís feelings. Jesus did the same
thing because he was a man. So what Iím saying with my organization Church
for Men is men have to grow Sunday morning or they wonít come to
Saturday morning pancake breakfast . And thatís the revolution Iím
trying to create. Instead of trying to create some special ministry for
men, menís ministry has to be 11 am Sunday morning. Men walk into a
church service. They have to sense deep in their gut that this is
something for them, not just something for their grandma. Thatís the big
challenge Iím issuing. Create an environment where the men grow on
Sunday morning and they donít even need the Saturday morning breakfast.
Your entire church will grow, your men will grow, your women will be
blessed because the men are growing. Unfortunately so many churches leave
men so cold theyíre just not experiencing the abundant life that Jesus
promised.

Describe what that Sunday morning
would look like.

I took a stab at it with something I
put on my website, itís called the Go for the guys Sunday action plan.
Itís a 19-page guide for a church that wants to attempt a men-friendly
worship service. Itís got all the details, the service is going to be an
hour long, the teachingís going to be brief, itíll be built around an
object lesson they can take away with them. Iím advocating a menís
huddle at the end of the service where you call the men together and the
pastor calls them to the front and gives them another object lesson to
reinforce the message in their minds. And then actually gives them a
touchstone or object that helps them remember through the week. Itís
really just a kidís sermon for big boys. The churches that are doing
this are getting tremendous response from the men. The men are really
enthusiastic about it because it gives them a very practical way of
retaining the lesson and then applying it during the week because they
have this object lesson riding around with them in their pocket. And they
come back the next week and say, guess what I did. I had my eraser in my
pocket and I remembered to forgive that guy because Jesus forgave me.
Itís just Christianity 101 but weíve gotten away from it in the
church. Itís just a lot of little things you can do in your worship
service to give men a bit of extra attention. I call it kind of an
affirmative action program for the churchís largest minority group. You
give men a little bit of extra help, a little bit of extra watering and
fertilizing and they grow like mad. But most men have never had any extra
attention in the church and thatís why theyíre so passive and bored.

But arenít you in danger of
just catering to menís weaknesses, giving them what they want, not what
they need?

I would say thatís true. I am
catering to menís weaknesses because Jesus always catered to the
weakness of the people he encountered. So did the Apostle Paul. He said
when Iím among the Greeks Iím a Greek, when Iím with the Jews Iím
a Jew. So if weíre among men we need to speak like men. But so much of
our Christian culture is based around feminine expression that men just
want to throw up. I got an email from a guy in a Methodist congregation
and he said he thought I was crazy when he read my book. Then he went to
church on Sunday and they had a liturgical dance featuring all these
12-year-old girls in pink dresses and he was just about ready to throw up
because it was all these wood nymphs singing these songs to Mother Earth
and heíd never noticed it before. He said itís so unbelievably
feminized and itís happening right under our noses and we donít even
notice it.

You write: ďChurch is one of the
last places men look for God.Ē Really?

Itís true. If you asked a man, where
can you invest your life for the biggest return heís probably not going
to say church. Thatís going to be far down the list behind career,
behind family, behind recreational pursuits. Itís not the kind of place
men look for God or for significance anymore.

You recommend shorter sermons. How
has that been received?

Itís the most controversial thing I
say. The big thing I always hear is this: Men can sit still for a
three-hour baseball game. Why canít they sit still for a forty-five
teaching of Godís holy Word?

What do you say?

I say, think about what a baseball
gameís got. Itís got competition. Itís ritual combat. Men are
watching good versus evil right in front of them. Your team is good, the
other team is evil. Itís participatory. There are frequent breaks to get
up and stretch and move around. The outcome is uncertain. Thereís an
element of tension and risk. Does church have any of that? The answer is
no.Itís completely
predictable. Itís completely verbal. Thereís almost chance for a
break. Itís constant listening, or standing and singing. A Christian
life thatís built around a series of lectures and songs and a book on
the lap study experience is not going to retain men very long. A sporting
event speaks to them for the rest of their lives because it speaks to the
deep story thatís in a manís heart, the story of good versus evil,
competition, risk, adventure, tension. So we need to figure out ways to
bring those things back into the Christian life. Theyíve left. Theyíve
departed. Jesus knew how to do it and weíve just got to get back to that
if weíre going to retain the men.

So if David Morrow is asked to
speak on a Sunday morning, what does that service look like?

Iím not a preacher and the last time
I offered the message in a church it was ten minutes long. Here are some
of the elements I introduced into it. First of all I pretended to be late.
Thatís something I always do. I add that element of uncertainty. They
introduce me and I donít show up. They say, I wonder where Dave is, and
I walk in about three minutes late while theyíre fiddling with whatever.
Iíve got ten eggs in my hand and I get up and start talking and as I do
the eggs are falling out of my hand onto the ground and smashing on the
floor of the church. Then I explain to the people what happened. Finally
nine eggs are on the ground and one is in my hand. And I tell them that 90
percent of the boys who are raised in the church by the time theyíre in
their teens and twenties. The eggs on the ground represent those boys.
Only one boy out of ten whoís raised in the church will remain faithful
to it throughout his life. Then I challenge them and ask them, what is it
about our church system thatís causing this to happen? Why can Islam
retain boys throughout their lives but Christianity loses them all during
their bold aggressive teenage years. Then I pray and itís done and
people say Whoa! Because they remember it throughout their lives. And at
the end of the service if I have the opportunity to have a menís huddle
I call the guys up and I have some more eggs and I start throwing them out
into the crowd. And I say, ok guys, you know what your role is? Catch the
boys. Catch them before they fall. What are you doing for the boys? That
sort of message stays with guys. A long verbal treatise full of
theological truth and Greek and Hebrew translations of wordsómaybe there
are some men in the church who like that, most of them have been to
seminaryóbut men like truth they can use and chew on through the week.
Now every time a guy cracks an egg heís thinking, What am I doing for
the boys?

And then there are probably a few
ladies sitting there thinking, now Iíve got to clean the carpet.

Well, Iíll tell you another thing
about those men. What happens is, after the huddle, the guy gets into the
car with the wife and kids and whatís the first thing the wife says?
What happened up there in the huddle. And the guy reaches into his pocket
and pulls out whatever and says, Pastor gave us this and it means weíre
supposed to forgive. And then what does the son say? Hey, Dad, let me see
it and he gives it to his son. And guess what? For the first time in his
life, Dad is being a spiritual leader to his family because heís got an
object lesson that heís just taught to his family. When a man has
something to offer spiritually that transforms him because heís finally
able to fulfill his role. The pastor has equipped the man to lead his
family. Weíre such hypocrites in the church because we say, be a
spiritual leader, but we donít equip the man to do it.

Would you say men are changed by
what they experience, not by what they are told?

Itís true. Absolutely true. Boys are
the same way.

Has this book ticked some people
off?

I really expected to be pilloried. But
there has been very widespread acceptance. When the New York Times writes
a favorable review, you know youíre on to something. I guess in
evangelical circles the big criticism has been the short sermon. I do get
some criticism from women who think Iím advocating a male-dominated
church, because theyíve been taught that whenever man gather women are
oppressed. So the whole idea of men being active in church frightens them.
Iíve also received limited grumblings from older main-line pastors in
their 50s and 60s who grew up in a very male-oriented church in the 1950s
and would see the return of men as a threat. It would upset their apple
cart. They know how to deal with women, their entire staff is women and
theyíre quite comfortable dealing with women all the time. If there was
a bunch of wild-at-heart men running around the church that would be a
threat to them. But really the opposition has been far outweighed by the
positive. I just get kudos from all over the world all the time from men
who are saying, Thank you for finally explaining me to myself. I love God
with all my heart but if I have to sit through another inductive Bible
studyó

The volume of response must have
surprised you.

Oh, it has. Itís exceeded my wildest
prayers. I always prayed that this would become more than a book, that it
would become a movement. And God is answering that prayer. So many people,
different walks of life, different backgrounds are taking this to heart
and beginning to move the thermostat in their churches toward challenge,
adventure, risk, the things that men like. Itís not that they didnít
want those things before; itís just that they didnít realize that they
had become comfortable and focused the church so much on keeping people
happy in the pews. But when you put it in terms of men and boys needing
these things, even people who are comfortable with the status quo see the
need for change and are willing to go along, even a little ways. So itís
been gratifying to see how Godís people are taking these things and
using it to create an environment where your average garden-variety guy
can encounter Jesus Christ.

What would you
like to be remembered for? What would you like on your tombstone?

I
would like to be the guy who was responsible for there being at least one
church in every town where men can encounter Jesus Christ. The praise and
worship movement has really changed culture. Itís made God more alive to
people. We need a similar revolution with men. There needs to be a church
in every town where guys can walk in and instantly know that God is on
their side, that they can win in church, that thereís a role, a place
for them, that they can be used the way God made them instead of having to
be squeezed into a feminine religious role. And if thatís the case, in
forty or fifty years, if there are men-friendly churches all over the
country I will feel very good about what God has accomplished through my
life.